SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 74, 8 January 1941, Page 4

SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY.

The supreme test of Soviet foreign policy will come 1 when Germany puts pressure on Turkey to let German troops through to the Near East, writes Mr William Henry Chamberlain in the “Christian Science Monitor.” The Germans at Constantinople would mean that Russia is kept a prisoner in the Black Sea indefinitely. M. Stalin would then have to decide either to submit to this spvere counter-check to his ambitions, still hoping that he might some day retrieve what he had lost through a German collapse, or to take the; risks of actively supporting Turkey in a policy of resistance. It is not unlikely that the Axis dictators will try to buy M. Stalin’s complaisance for their plans in the Near East by suggesting compensations in the Middle East, perhaps in Iran, where Russian influence was paramount in the northern part of the country before the World War. Both Germany and Japan would be delighted if the Soviet Union could be diverted away both from Europe and from the Far East, and induced to march against India by way of the mountain passes of Afghanistan. What M. Stalin will do will depend on the following considerations, in the following order of importance: Maintenance of his own power, advancement of Russian national and imperialist ambitions, and the spread of Communism.